


Fireworks, and the Odd Thought or Two

by josephina_x



Category: Smallville
Genre: (and a lot more thinking), (but he does it so well! ;), Fireworks, Gen, Lex Luthor is a Jerk, Nemesis-ship, New Year's Eve, angry yelling, thinky thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 13:04:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9125002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: New Year’s Eve fireworks, Lex-Luthor-in-Metropolis style.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Fireworks, and the Odd Thought or Two  
> Author: [josephina_x](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com)  
> Fandom: Smallville  
> Pairing: Clark Kent & Lex Luthor  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Spoilers: general for the whole series, takes place post-finale  
> Word count: 2200+  
> Summary: New Year’s Eve fireworks, Lex-Luthor-in-Metropolis style.  
> Warnings: Un-beta'd.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.  
> Comments: Yes, please! :)  
> Author's Note: Here’s a Clexmas 2016 stocking stuffer that got way too long! ^_^;; Prompt: Fireworks

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark frowned as he held up the end of his cape. It was singed.

“Were you _trying_ to hit me?!” he complained at Lex, shaking it at him before letting it fall back to his side.

Lex turned away from him, to pour himself a tumbler of scotch. “If I say yes, will you stop yelling?”

“ _No!_ ” Clark yelled at him angrily.

Lex turned his head slightly, enough to look over his shoulder at him. “If I say no, will you stop yelling?”

“NO!” Clark repeated, even more heatedly and loudly, with a glare.

Lex raised a single, sardonic eyebrow at him.

Clark clenched his jaw and tried to bring it back under control. And he did; by now he had _excellent_ muscle control. Turn on a dime, fly to the moon, stop a train, catch a body mid-air -- that took serious practice and effort, and he was _good_ at it.

He also had _great_ restraint, too. Because of practice and effort. --Mainly acquired from having to deal with _Lex_.

(...He swore his eye had to be twitching, though. Like, a phantom twitch.)

“Don’t you think that’s not quite… _fair_?” Lex drawled out, as he lifted the tumbler to his lips.

Now, Clark _felt_ his eye twitch. “If you wanted to be nemeses-with-benefits, you should’ve demanded it at the time,” Clark told him firmly, crossing his arms at him.

Lex burst out _laughing_.

Clark was left having to take small comfort in the fact that if he’d managed to get that out even a _split-second_ sooner, Lex wouldn’t be laughing, he’d’ve sprayed that liquor halfway across the roof and been _choking_. And it would have served him right, too.

Clearly, Clark needed to work on his timing… and his reaction time.

Nightwing was pretty good at the whole ‘banter’ thing, right? And _she_ didn’t get nearly-blown-up by _her_ enemies. _Maybe I could take lessons, or something,_ he wondered miserably. Barbara _was_ a college student, right? College-student tutoring was a thing...

“Is there a _reason_ that you’re on my roof, getting in the middle of my fireworks display, by the way?” Lex asked him freely.

Clark barely managed not to clench his jaw at him, again -- mainly because when he did that, he tended to hiss out words, which was not very good for the Hero image because _seething anger_ tended to scare people more than anything else out there, these days.

“ _\--Those aren’t fireworks!_ ” Clark yelled at him instead. “Those were _MISSILES!_ ”

Lex didn’t even blink. “They are rockets-in-miniature,” he declared evenly. “Hence, fireworks.”

“Missiles!”

Lex eyed him. “If you have a problem with the strict classification of my _rockets_ ,” Lex stressed lightly, "Then perhaps your time would be better spent having this discussion with the civilian and military authorities who cleared them for use?” he pointed out delicately.

Clark twitched again, and tried not to swear. He and General Lane might be on talking terms these days, but the General had to take orders from above, and -- to their credit -- when he’d been ordered to send out military choppers to try and shoot down (read: _blow up_ ) Superman three months ago, his direct superiors hadn’t hung him out to dry after the fact, despite Superman surviving the experience.

...to both Clark and Superman’s detriment. Because apparently they way that the authorities had gotten around god-knew-how-many counts of military action within-the-borders of the US and willful endangerment of civilians had been to claim that the missiles that they had sent after Clark from those attack helicopters hadn’t been missiles, “just rockets,” and that the military action hadn’t been military action, “just a training exercise.” Which they’d gotten away with, because by the grace of Superman, nobody had gotten hurt.

Clark and Lois had tried to fight it, but while they’d gotten the US Congress to redefine the term _properly_ and by law impose it on every military branch (which could and was done, because the definition of that _was_ important for general budgetary concerns, for the folks who oversaw military spending), _somebody_ had snuck in a last-minute loophole that said that the military would defer to local definitions of the term on a per-locality basis.

Clark was pretty sure now, as he gave Lex the stink eye, that he knew exactly _who_ that _somebody_ must have been.

...because the local city government in Metropolis had passed a law using the “new” messed-up definition the military had gotten called out on -- probably because enough of them were nervous enough to still want to option open to try and bomb anything midair that they wanted, after the planet Apocalypse nearly dropped on their heads on the day of Contact. But, that shouldn’t have been a problem, since Chloe and Lois together had drummed up enough pressure to get the city to change it to include an exception, deferring to the federal definitions for any military terms at the time. Even LexCorp had pitched in to help, being a big military defense contractor now and not wanting to potentially have an issue down the road if they wanted to start manufacturing missiles for the military at some later date, and so at the end of the day, the correct term covered anything done by the military in the area, period.

Both Clark and Lois had still been kind of (and very) suspicious of Lex’s motives at the time -- Lex generally opposed what either of them wanted on principle alone, these days -- but they hadn’t been able to figure out what his game was. It hadn’t occurred to either of them that “anything military” wouldn’t also cover civilian action. ...Not that _that_ should have been a problem either, because what civilian in their right mind would be able to get ahold of a bunch of missiles? Let alone set them off?

\--Well, at least now, Clark knew. Small comforts.

“You know, I _do_ have all the necessary permits for the airspace from the city council’s public works department for this fireworks display,” Lex continued, as Clark tried not to clench his jaw again. “Would you like to view them?” he was asked breezily.

“There’s already a fireworks display down at the docks,” Clark ground out at his nemesis, trying to keep himself constrained to using pure logic, because if he didn’t, he might well lose his temper completely, and then end up with some of those missiles aimed at his face -- which he would probably actually deserve at that point for what he’d do if he _did_ lose his temper again, like he had on some previous not-to-be-thought-about-right-now occasions -- and they both knew that. Because that was what nemeses-without-benefits _did_.

So when Lex gave him a sharp look at the tone he’d adopted, Clark forced himself to take a deep breath, got both hands on his temper, and tried again. And this time, at least, he managed a much flatter tone: “Metropolis doesn’t need a _second_ fireworks display.”

“LexCorp is at the exact center of the city,” Lex informed him dryly. “The fireworks display down by the river can’t be seen from the opposite edge of the city.” He smirked. “Mine can.”

Right. Because Lex was _totally_ doing this because he was oh-so-civic-minded. _Pull the other one, it’s got bells on._

“You know, I can only be so sorry about the cape,” Lex told him. “I did put a warning -- excuse me, a _notice_ in the Daily Planet about the display last week, for everyone to see. So they could look forward to it.” Lex smiled at him over the rim of his glass, eyes bright.

Right. Clark would bet money that that “notice” was probably an inch of a single column of space buried in the back pages of the paper copy of a weekday early edition, too, which nobody ever read. The jerk.

“They’ve got Kryptonite in them.”

“No, they don’t,” Lex said, finishing the rest of his drink with a grimace -- like that statement had given him a bad taste in his mouth -- then turning to pour himself another.

“Yes, they do!”

“Prove it,” Lex tossed over his shoulder at him.

Clark seethed.

“Then why are the explosions green,” Clark gritted out, because he hated this part of the nemesis ‘game’. Because when Lex got _this_ smug, Clark knew he was about to lose, and lose _badly_.

“I like green,” Lex told him.

“You like purple!” Clark protested.

“I like green and purple,” Lex said, all-Zen.

“You don’t _have_ any purple missiles, all the explosions have been green!” Clark pointed out bloodily.

Lex stared down Clark, and Clark glared at Lex.

“I was saving the purple ones for last,” Lex added loftily, after awhile.

Clark stared at him, stunned, then glanced over at the rest of the missiles spread out across the rooftop, still waiting to be fired into the air.

Every single empty launcher had a label down the side of it that said “GREEN”.

And there was a set of them at the end, carefully labeled “PURPLE”.

Clark glared at Lex even harder, and Lex stared back at Clark. He took a sip of his drink, all casual confidence.

...Clark broke first.

“I hate you so much,” Clark groused, shoulders dropping.

Lex grinned.

“Happy New Year, ‘Superman’!” he yelled after Clark as Clark took off at all due speed, and yes, Clark could hear the air quotes _just fine_.

Clark didn’t need to look back to hear Lex raise his glass in a toast, before tossing it back, either.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It didn’t surprise Clark that the very next day -- like every next day after they’d had an argument these days -- that Lex put an ad in the paper again, for any information pertaining to the identity and home address of one ‘black-haired Superman’, with reward contingent upon usefulness.

It was just like him, too. Lex would never have to pay it out to anyone, because everything he needed to know, he _already knew_.

‘Happy New Year,’ sure. Same as the old year. Same as the old Lex.

Why did his nemesis have to be such a jerk?

And, for _whatever_ reason, though Lex completely ignored his birthday -- like he _should_ , because they were _nemeses_ , darn it! -- he still somehow had the nerve to ask Clark what he wanted for Christmas each year. Like _that_ was a thing. Every year so far, Clark had ignored him, and every year, Lex sent him a card asking the same thing, with a note at the end that whatever-it-was could be however-many-years-it-was worth of gift, since he was that-many years behind, and Clark wasn’t _stupid_. It sounded like a build-up for something.

Like Lex was working up to an excuse to do something big. Like Lex _wanted_ something from him, and this was going to be a great excuse for him to get it. ...If Clark let him get away with it by not doing anything sooner.

Whatever it was that Lex wanted to do, Clark knew that he’d need to defuse that one sooner rather than later, before Lex worked himself up to it, or risk getting blindsided by Lex again.

And Lex _would_ do it. Lex enjoyed this nemesis-stuff _way_ too much for Clark’s own good. Or sanity.

Clark knew he had to do something about Lex; he’d known that for awhile now. He didn’t know exactly why Lex hadn’t ‘outed’ him yet -- there had been times when one or the other of them had lost their temper with the other, and things had gotten so bad that Clark had been sure that Lex would do it, would take that final step, would go ahead and _tell_ , and he'd held his breath and opened the paper the very next day and... Lex hadn’t -- but Clark _did_ know why Lex was sticking to the nemesis-thing so hard -- it was _payback_. And right now, the only one who seemed to be getting any benefit out of it was him.

Clark frowned at the days-old ‘Christmas gift idea request’ card, still pinned to the corkboard at the back of his desk, and rubbed a hand over his face. Was there any way that he could defuse that ticking time bomb, while still getting one over on Lex at the same time? Asking Lex to leave him alone wouldn’t work, Clark knew that much; he’d just get offended. And probably stop sending him Christmas cards. ...And probably still spring whatever-it-was on him anyway, without any warning at all, as a ‘nice surprise’.

 _It’s too bad that_ I _can’t just demand that Lex be a nemesis-with-benefits, instead of a nemesis-without-them,_ Clark thought sarcastically, because Lex would sure _love_ that, wouldn’t he, with the way he’d laughed about it the night before? Because _that_ would solve a lot of problems, right there. Oh-so-many problems.

...Wouldn’t it, though?

Clark frowned as he sat down at his desk at the Planet, and shrugged off his coat.

 _Could_ he demand that?

...Would that even work?

Clark sighed, then frowned again as he pulled over his inbox, which wasn’t empty. He pulled out what looked like an early edition of the Daily Planet’s printer-paper, dated… -- yes, last week -- then narrowed his eyes at the, yes, actually-there “notice” of the LexCorp-sponsored “fireworks display,” circled in both purple and green ink, and he thought. He thought _hard_.

And then the next minor crisis happened, which distracted him from thinking about it -- not like he’d exactly been getting anywhere with it anyway -- and while he stopped thinking about it for a long time, he never exactly _forgot_ about it. Not... _quite_.

The idea bounced around in the back of his head for a very long time.

~*~*~*~*~*~

**Author's Note:**

> AN: You can be assured that after some time has passed, and Lex has inostensibly finished driving Clark-nee-Superman _completely_ insane with his nemeses-without-benefits shenanigans (...leaving Lois at loose ends because an insane-Clark is kind of hard for any sane person to deal with, you understand...), that Lex eventually figures out Clark’s real birthday (which was the only thing keeping him from sending Clark ‘birthday gift request’ cards, too, not just the ones at Christmastime), and then [this happens](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5712268). ...Oops?


End file.
